There is constant whining, on Fox, about conservatives being denied their freedom of speech by "politically correct" liberals. But the same concern isn't shown about liberal speech when it offends conservatives. Lately, Fox has been showcasing alleged liberal bias on campuses. Fox & Friends validated right wing hysteria about a liberal professor's "rant" about Republicans, even after the teacher apologized. Fox friend Tucker Carlson and his right wing guest, Caleb Bonham whined about how colleges are "little indoctrination centers." The narrative was continued on Saturday's Fox & Friends when three conservative students whined about their professors. And this morning, Elisabeth Hasselbeck channeled right wing outrage over a professor's street theater to further promote the popular Fox persecuted student and, for bonus points, persecuted Christian meme in a segment that didn't quite hit the propaganda mark.

Yesterday, Anna Kooiman asked if "tuition dollars are well spent" if they go to professors who, OMG, "attack Republicans." Video was played of the "rant," featured on last week's Fox & Friends, of an Eastern Connecticut State College professor who criticized Republicans with words like "money grubbing," "misogynist," and "racist." (Ahem!) Naturally, Kooiman didn't mention the apology. The same chyron that was used in the first Fox & Friends hit piece, about this professor, was recycled: "Tuition Money Well Spent? Prof. Uses Class Time to Rant About Republicans." (Aww) After asking her three guests what it's like to be a college conservative, her three guests told their sad story. At the end of the piece, they provided a Twitter hashtag #myliberalcampus where other conservative students can share their sad stories.

This morning, on a "Trouble With Schools" Segment, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, looking very disturbed, immediately framed the message: "caught on camera, a university professor lashes out on evangelicals who were preaching on campus." The chyron reinforced the propaganda: "Caught on Camera, U Conn Prof Lashes Out At Christian Preachers." The video appeared to show the professor haranguing evangelicals." Hasselbeck said that the "professor says that he was exercising free speech." She asked her college Republican guest about his reaction.

Mark Sargent provided an unusually, for Fox & Friends, rational presentation. He said that this was the first time he has seen a professor speak out against the evangelicals who preach on campus. He emphasized the importance of freedom of speech and suggested that the professor's behavior was not consistent with the school's stance on this freedom. The chyron asked "Free Speech or Too Far, Prof. Defends Confrontation With Christians." Hasselbeck read a statement from the university and a statement from the professor about how his actions, protected under free speech, were part of street theater. He mentions that the video edited out insulting comments, made by the Christians, towards non-Christians.

Hasselbeck was apparently not satisfied with Sargent's acknowledgment that some students felt they were being attacked by the Christians who do make some students uncomfortable. She asked if students would be uncomfortable if they challenged the professor's theories. Sargent deftly pivoted away from the professor by noting that any student would be uncomfortable if they were intimidated by a teacher. He actually admitted that he has been intimidated by the Christians. Attempting to recoup what appears to have been a propaganda fail, Hasselbeck said "speaking of your own personal beliefs and the students have been speaking out as well."

As reported on Raw Story, the professor was responding to a Christian comment that some people believe we are descended from monkeys. The professor took on the persona of an evangelical preacher and did a satirical fire and brimstone sermon on Darwinism in defense of student who, as Sargent admitted, are made uncomfortable by the evangelical's comments on students "sexual behaviors, sexual preference." Somehow, on Fox & Friends, this got lost in translation.

Showing 41 reactions

Thank you, if you don’t want to pay attention to me, I’m OK with that. Regarding profiles, I thought the only thing being hidden was tracking or “stalking” abilities, I found out other things can be seen, so I hid my profile, d d explained that to me.
Funny how you say "Either way, your “persona” is not credible and I’ve decided to pay no more attention to you. Yet you just posted about me again, you lied, and you are dishonest. You are not credible, I’m just kidding. I learned a lot from this website and its commenter s, I will be sticking around learning some more. I hope you are having a nice day bemused. Cya around.

@tom: What’s with this empty flattery? It only compromises your credibility further by corroborating my impression that you are, indeed, barely out of diapers. If you are, indeed, 17 years old, you lied by saying you voted for Obama; alternatively, you lied by saying you were 17 years old. Either way, your “persona” is not credible and I’ve decided to pay no more attention to you.

My bad, I should of written it better. The only reason i would go back, or “stalk” comments, because it would relate to the current discussion. I would not do it because of the famous “both sides do it”, bemused has enlightened me regarding that subject.

Every other sentence you wrote in that paragraph used the the words “I”, “my” or “me” (referring to yourself). So if you were talking about yourself with regrds to presenting sources, I would think that you would have said, “I believe that I need to present my sources regarding what I have written.” But you didn’t – in that sentence about sources, you switched over to use the words “you” and “your” – so obviously I’m going to think that you are talking about me and my source.

As far as my quoting you, it was easy because it was a recent post that was still sitting on the NHs front page – there was no need to stalk through someone’s past comments via their public profile to forage for a gotcha or something to “fact check”. But it you want to spend hours of your free time going back through someone’s history of comments instead of focusing on the current issues being discussed at NHs, knock yourself out. LOL!

Regarding showing sources: I was talking about myself not you d d. Ok I admit it I was dishonest, it was what I felt so I copy and pasted. Like I said in previous post. I will refrain from doing that. It’s a lot quicker to quote somebody like you did me having this feature and sometimes almost impossible. I guess I will have to work harder when having to go back and fact check somebody. Peace

Dude, for crying out loud, you posted someone else’s EXACT words as your own! You did not provide a link or even bother to say that it was Debbie Schlussel’s words that you were quoting. Deny all you want but that is dishonest and I have a lot of trouble believing that you didn’t know what you were doing when you stole verbatim from her article. Yeah, obviously “your credibility doesn’t mean anything” as you’ve destroyed any shred of cred that you may have had.

As far you saying that I need to present my “sources” for what I posted, I did! I provided a link to the words you plagiarized right there on the NHs post (which I linked to below). Geez.

And, up until I made my first post below in this thread, I did have a public profile that showed all my past comments. When I noticed that Vis55’s not having a public profile really got your undies in a bunch, I made mine private to see if you would make mention of it too – and sure enough you did. LOL!

If someone doesn’t want to have their profile public for anyone to view, it doesn’t irritate me in the least. That’s just one way for them to protect their online privacy to some extent. I see it all the time at other websites too such as some people who post via Disqus, etc. Not sure why this seems to bother you so much – you compiling dossiers on the people who post here or something? If you want to track what all someone else posts here, I guess you’ll just have to work a little harder to do it. Bwaaah!

When i write something, i guess i have to list the articles to validate it.

Well, the only difference between a profile and not having one is tracking your comments, correct. Well the people here like this feature because you can go back and recall what someone has written, it is much easier. So that tells me people who don’t have one, want to make it harder for someone to backtrack. This is my guess, I am curious, I want to know what others think. I asked an legitimate question, and I am curious. If d d doesn’t want to answer, that’s fine, I’m cool with that.

I like that definition of plagiarism. Like I said, i will not do that, I will take my time and read the article and write it myself, i will try my hardest to list the articles i have read, for you and others to read.

Somehow, I have difficulty in believing anything Tom writes. Especially when he says he was being sarcastic when he said he was 17 years old. Sarcasm and irony would be totally out of character for him.

In any case, plagiarism is always both misleading and dishonest because what a plagiarist does is claim credit for something done by someone else. Another name for that is theft and theft is theft.

It was misleading, but not dishonest. My credibility doesn’t mean anything. I believe you need to present your sources regarding what you have written. I learned from my mistakes. I will not do that anymore. I now will take the time and read the article and put it in my own words, it will seem similar, but in my own words. Bemused, has shown that to me.

I always wanted to know, why some people do not create profiles, like yourself. I would like to hear this from someone who does not have one. Do not take this as an attack, I am just curious.

“Tom” – it was more than just leaving out the quote marks. Your post was the exact words of Schlussel yet you presented it to the readers here as your own words. That was misleading and dishonest – and, add to that your lame concern trolling – Bemused is right….your cred is shot.

A little earlier in this thread, you admit to being 17 years old and that’s just about right for the quality of your writing. On other threads, you claim (petulantly) to have voted for Obama. Unless I’m much mistaken, you can’t vote even for a dog catcher until you reach 18 years of age (eighteen).

Either way, you are lying through your teeth and that undermines the credibility of anything and everything you’ve written so far. Not a big deal given your tender age. If only you didn’t behave so much like my pesky little brother when I was being courted by the most popular lad in town (who turned out to be a jerk, of course). Took a quarter to get him to leave, then. I wonder what it costs nowadays because you are starting seriously to bore me, Son.

As someone once said (Shakespeare, probably): “To err is human, but perserverance is diabolic” and you are certainly perservering. As Kevin punches large holes through your contributions (I use the word advisedly), you continue to post ill-digested versions of other people’s thoughts without attributing them (plagiarism) and apologising abjectly when someone catches you out. The image that comes to mind is a puppy on his back begging for a pat on the tummy instead of punishment for peeing on the carpet. The puppy effect is wearing off, however. At least in my case. Kevin is a lot more patient.

PS: You keep on insisting that Visitor should provide a profile etc. etc. so that you can check her posts. That’s a lot like the pot calling the kettle black (Shakespeare, again, I believe). By claiming that you voted for Obama and by admitting you are 17 years of age, you’ve provided inconfutable evidence that your own credentials are of dubious value.

Um, “Tom”, you are really in no position to be giving others advice about their comments. It seems our latest concern troll is posting someone else’s exact words as his own. No quotation marks/no link/no attribution to the person he took the words from – right-winger Debbie Schlussel.

I tried the name calling thing and I don’t like it. It doesn’t contribute to the conversation. Visitor, get a profile so we can track your comments. Why don’t you get one? Until you get a profile, and stop your childish behavior your comments have no weight. You still cannot let it go. I apologized for that comment. Get over it.

She told me that it was derogatory and i told her you guys called yourselves that first, now your pissed because it means something else. Plus nigger has always been used as a bad term, it did not start out in the same way teabagger was coined. She was yelling at me like this university professor.

The Tea Party of today is a tool of the Koch brothers. They developed organizations to rile-up the fringe base of the Republican party in order to fight there battles for them. Getting the weak minded to fight for policies that serve to only benefit the very wealthiest among us is genius. Would it be better to replace the term Tea-baggers with “useful idiots”?
I don’t know how you can argue against that.

I was talking to a tea party member, and in conversation i called her a teabagger, she got upset and i told her what joseph said and her response is black people call themselves niggers, so does that make it ok for me say it. I said you can’t compare nigger to teabagger, thats different. Man her face was red.

So what i need to do is ignore the few that do this here. The reason i say both sides do it is to show the common denominator between both parties. The left does the same thing as the right, the right does the same thing as the left. Are you saying two wrongs don’t make a right?

Sorry, Tom, but it’s not good debating form to draw such a broad conclusion on the basis of a couple of examples. The majority of the posters on this blog do not resort to insults and your focus only on those who occasionally do is a dead giveaway that you are a “concern troll” (google it) not a sincere contributor.

Joseph is right: teabaggers were the very first people to use that name and they started blaming us only after their own name for themselves backfired in their face. That’s another form of “me not responsible, sob!”. Your previous apologies allowed me to think that you were so inclined, but that conclusion was somewhat tarnished by your last post.

My comment focused on the infantile nature of the teabagger as a category, a conclusion based on a long list of silly behaviors at best, downright dangerous rants at worse. You were, of course, correct in taking it somewhat personally. In fact, you’ve been saying “both sides do it” since you arrived. That scale has one plate firmly planted on the ground.

Tell the truth, I suspect that you have better stuff in you but you’re too eager to repeat things others have said. Even your outbursts are plagiary. I’d personally like to see what you can do if you put your own brain in gear, and leave the lame arguments to others.